tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5759844.post7083735427819061094..comments2024-03-21T14:59:20.729-04:00Comments on NT Blog: Nicholas Perrin, Thomas: The Other Gospel: ReflectionsMark Goodacrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05115370166754797529noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5759844.post-39279404991970712142007-06-12T17:33:00.000-04:002007-06-12T17:33:00.000-04:001. Fudging the translation into Syriac to suit the...1. Fudging the translation into Syriac to suit the theory.<BR/>“So we are not really comparing like with like -- the experimenter's own retroversion is compared with an extant text.”<BR/><BR/>The answer to Perrin’s ‘maximum correspondence’ Syriac retroversion would be to do a ‘minimum correspondence’ version and see whether his theory still holds under these conditions. Otherwise he is just being criticised in general terms, without clarity as to whether the criticisms are overwhelming or just marginal.<BR/><BR/>2. Why so little Johannine material in Thomas?<BR/>“Perrin's thesis is that Thomas's knowledge of the Gospels is mediated via the Diatessaron, and if his knowledge of the Gospels is mediated via the Diatessaron, why does he not feature Johannine material?”<BR/><BR/>This is a fair point which Perrin needs to address.<BR/><BR/>3. Order<BR/>“the new book simply works with the same underlying assumption, that parallels in order with the Synoptics are evidence for Thomas's use of the Diatessaron. Take, for example, the following statement:<BR/>At points the Gospel of Thomas does follow the order of both the synoptics and the Diatessaron: Gos. Thom. 8-9, 32-33, 42/43-44, 47, 65-66, 68-69, 92-93 and 93-94. (95)<BR/>My point is that the "both . . . and" is true but irrelevant. The relevant piece of data is that Thomas here follows the order of the Synoptics.”<BR/><BR/>This misunderstands Perrin. The above quotation in his book is immediately preceded by the words “Whereas it is regularly claimed that the sayings in Thomas do not reflect the sequence of the canonical gospels and this in turn often becomes, as it does for Patterson, the basis for arguing for the collection’s independence, it must be said (as Patterson concedes) that this claim is not completely true. At points the Gospel of Thomas etc ....”<BR/><BR/>All that Perrin is saying here is that where Thomas follows the synoptics (which is a problem for Patterson’s theory) his own theory readily supplies the solution: Diatessaron follows synoptics here. So he is claiming that Thomas follows Diatessaron both when it follows synoptics and when it doesn’t. If he can demonstrate that, his theory is very strong indeed.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5759844.post-15582962928394606582007-05-30T20:33:00.000-04:002007-05-30T20:33:00.000-04:00Great review - many thanks. Cheers,JacobGreat review - many thanks. <BR/><BR/>Cheers,<BR/>JacobAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5759844.post-58086142709517073302007-05-29T16:19:00.000-04:002007-05-29T16:19:00.000-04:00Thanks for all these comments. Steph: I've now r...Thanks for all these comments. Steph: I've now read the Joosten review and have added reference to it to the post.Mark Goodacrehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05115370166754797529noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5759844.post-19374308613192256992007-05-27T17:35:00.000-04:002007-05-27T17:35:00.000-04:00Jan Joosten writes a very good (slamming) review o...Jan Joosten writes a very good (slamming) review of "Thomas and Tatian" in Aramaic Studies 2.1 (Jan 2004) 126-130Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5759844.post-46012427035196316232007-05-24T11:52:00.000-04:002007-05-24T11:52:00.000-04:00Thanks for your review of this.I've had nagging pr...Thanks for your review of this.<BR/><BR/>I've had nagging problems with his catchwords thesis too. Unfortunately, I haven't started my Syriac studies yet, and even when I will have, I think critiquing his reconstruction in a detailed way would require a command of both Syriac and Coptic that goes well beyond even that possessed by many eminent scholars of early Christian literature.<BR/><BR/>I do know enough about learning ancient languages to know that the breadth of vocabulary we know well enough to use in composition or in translating out of one ancient language into another is always going to be smaller than the vocabulary we know well enough to recognize when we see it. In his Syriac reconstruction of Thomas, two thirds of the logia have no parallel in the Old Syriac or Diatessaron, meaning that in reconstructing those logia in Syriac Perrin had to rely on that lower level of vocabulary knowledge. Perrin very well may be outstanding in Syriac. But how many words does he really know well enough to reproduce in composition? Maybe 3,000 if he's very good at it? At any rate, his available vocabulary was necessarily much smaller than an ancient author whose native tongue was Syriac. It was also a smaller vocabulary than the Coptic vocabulary commanded by the author/translator of Coptic GThom. It seems to me that this weakness would guarantee that his reconstruction would have words used with greater frequency than an original Syriac actually would have had, thus increasing the apparent significance of catchwords.<BR/><BR/>Add to this the fact that the triliteral roots of the Semitic languages result in more words that are cognates of other words, and the fact that it would be hard for Dr. Perrin to reign in his own subliminal temptation to make the catchword theory work, and from the perspective of someone who doesn't know Syriac, the argument seems suspicious.<BR/><BR/>In fairness to him, though, I certainly have no problem with assuming that GThomas is a unified work. Those who divide it up into various strata or gradually accruing logia seem simply to assume the basic disunity of the work. I tend to think the burden of proof is on them to demonstrate disunity. And they haven't seemed to want that burden.Eric Rowehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00559055709208918638noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5759844.post-14380090426355772772007-05-24T10:41:00.000-04:002007-05-24T10:41:00.000-04:00Mike Bird has posted a response by Perrin to deCon...Mike Bird has posted a response by Perrin to deConick's response.J. B. Hoodhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17074055343675084879noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5759844.post-39820109634420271852007-05-24T07:27:00.000-04:002007-05-24T07:27:00.000-04:00The problem with Perrin's work is that he moves di...The problem with Perrin's work is that he moves directly from presenting strong evidence that Thomas is a/ at least partly based on some form of harmony and b/ at least partly based on Syriac gospel texts to claiming that hence Thomas is based on the Diatessaron. <BR/><BR/>IMO he needs to engage more closely with the complex problems both of harmonies predating the Diatessaron and Syriac Gospel texts predating the DiatessaronAndrew Criddlehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10529501480944256402noreply@blogger.com